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Updated: May 17, 2025
"I will deliver the lance and message to my Lord I swear it by the bones of the Prophet." Scarcely had the Turk disappeared in the direction of Hissar, when a crowd of peasants, men and women, were seen coming timorously from the direction of the village.
Captain Shafto of the ordnance was conducting an examination into the contents of the arsenal in the upper Balla Hissar, and had already discovered millions of cartridges, and about 150,000 lbs. of gunpowder. Daoud Shah, however, expressed his belief that at least a million pounds were in store.
Twelve poor fellows were killed, and seven wounded; among the former were five principal Goorkha officers. The Balla Hissar was promptly evacuated. Occasional explosions occurred for several days, the heaviest of those on the afternoon of the 16th, which threw on the city a great shower of stones, beams, and bullets.
The last words of his last message to the Viceroy, despatched on September 2d, were 'All well. The writer of those words was a dead man, and his mission had perished with him, almost as soon as the cheerful message borne along the telegraph wires reached its destination. In the morning of September 3d some Afghan regiments paraded without arms in the Balla Hissar to receive their pay.
Next day he made a formal entry into the Balla Hissar, his road lined with his staunch troops, a royal salute greeting the banner of Britain as it rose on the tall flagstaff above the gateway.
But Cavagnari had been slaughtered notwithstanding that he dwelt in the Balla Hissar Residency in virtue of a solemn treaty between the Empress of India and the Ameer of Afghanistan, notwithstanding that the latter had guaranteed him safety and protection, notwithstanding that Britain and Afghanistan had ratified a pledge of mutual friendship and reciprocal good offices.
'Under these circumstances, in the words of Pottinger, 'as the Major-General coincided with the officers of the council, and refused to attempt occupying the Balla Hissar, and as his second in command declared that impracticable, I considered it my duty, notwithstanding my repugnance to and disapproval of the measure, to yield, and attempt to carry on a negotiation.
And was it not made more and yet more unlikely when on the afternoon of the 13th Macpherson, acting on orders, moved his camp to the Balla Hissar heights, evacuating Deh Mazung and leaving open to the enemy the road into the city through the Cabul gorge? The following morning was to show how promptly and how freely the Afghans had taken advantage of the access to the capital thus afforded them.
Cavagnari and his people had been slaughtered in the Balla Hissar, and their bones were still mingled with the smouldering ruins of the Residency.
After this for a week there was quiet, and then at places widely apart at Hansid and Hissar, to the northwest of Delhi; at Nusserabad, in the center of Rajpootana, at Bareilly, and other stations in Rohilcund the Sepoys rose, and in most places massacre was added to mutiny. Then three regiments of the Gwalior contingent at Neemuch revolted.
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